U.S. Open Day 1: Rory Stripes It; Phil Hacks It

So much for my “Rick ratings.” Of the eight players I highlighted as possible winners in my pre-tourney handicap sheet, precisely none made the top twenty on the leaderboard at the end of day one. To make matters worse, my four “implausibles”—Donald, Fowler, Els, and Scott—outscored my “respectables”—Mickelson, Westwood, Stricker, and Watney. Mickelson, my pick as the winner, hit the ball sideways all day and was lucky to reach the clubhouse a mere nine shots behind the leader, Rory McIlroy. By way of consolation, Mickelson commented: “I can’t hit it any worse.”

Golf tournaments are played over seventy-two holes rather than eighteen, but still. Evidently it is I rather than Rick Hertzberg who wouldn’t know a gap wedge from a garden hoe. About the only thing I can say in my defense is that the 80-to-1 shot Angel Cabrera, whom I selected as one of my “eccentrics,” is just outside the top twenty at even par, and so is Bubba Watson, another of my picks. There is an old saying at the U.S. Open that when you are shooting even par you are in contention. As the greens firm up over the weekend and the pin placements get more fiendish, that truism is likely to hold up.

For now, though, the story is McIlroy, the Northern Irish phenom, who struck the ball beautifully and scored a six under par 65 to establish a three shot lead. (And he’s building that lead so far this morning on the front nine in Round 2.) One hole from his round, the five hundred and fifty-five yard par five sixth, sticks in mind particularly. After pounding a drive three hundred and twenty-five yards, or so, he hit an uphill three iron that headed for the green like a cruise missile, rolled right past the flag and ended up on the back fringe. It was the sort of iron shot that Tiger Woods used to play when he was McIlroy’s age—twenty-two—and served to remind why Ernie Els and other sound judges have identified Rory as “the next Tiger.”

I unwisely omitted Rory from my picks for two reasons. Firstly, like most everybody else, I assumed that his epic collapse on the final day of the Masters, when he shot eighty having started the day with a four-shot lead, would scar him, at least for a while. Apparently it didn’t. One thing that marks out McIlroy is his attitude. Rather than skulking around after the Masters, or mouthing sports-psychologist babble about “taking positives” from the ordeal, he said he had messed it up, expressed the hope he would learn something, and flew to his next tournament.

But despite my awe at McIlroy’s ball striking, and my respect for his character, I won’t be taking the odds of 5/2 being offered on him overnight by William Hill. That is because of the second reason I didn’t pick him up front: I’m not fully convinced of his ability to hole out putts under the highest pressure. Even in Round 1, when he made the rest of the game look ridiculously easy, he missed some makeable putts. When all is said and done, it was Tiger’s ability to get the ball in the hole, rather than his long game, which separated him from everybody else. If Tiger in his prime had played McIlroy’s round today from tee to green, he would have shot 61 or 62, established a six or seven shot lead, and gone on to win comfortably.

I dearly hope that Rory does the same thing, proves me wrong again, and demonstrates that the comparison with Tiger is an apt one. He needs the lift. So does Northern Ireland. And as my colleague Lee Ellis pointed out yesterday, so too does the business of golf.